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AAAS Strikes Landmark Agreements to Build Long-Term China Engagement

By Edward W. Lempinen

BEIJING—With China emerging as a world research power, top AAAS officials and their Chinese counterparts signed a series of cooperative agreements that could serve as the foundation for future collaborations on a range of critical science and technology issues.

The six-day trip to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou also included a conference, organized by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and AAAS, that brought together dozens of scholars and researchers from both nations to discuss scientific integrity and social responsibility. The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss efforts by both countries to address challenges that trouble the entire global research enterprise, as well as some possible areas of future collaboration such as ethics education and joint studies on specific cases.

	CAST President Han Qide (left); Leshner; Du Xiangwan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; and Mark S. Frankel, director of AAAS's Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program; during the opening session of the "China-U.S. Workshop on Scientists' Social and Ethical Responsibilities" [Photo by Edward W. Lempinen]

The AAAS delegation, led by Chief Executive Officer Alan I. Leshner, held substantive talks with some of China's most senior S&T leaders, including Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang; Deng Nan, chief executive secretary of CAST; Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); Shen Wenqing, who serves both as vice president of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and chairman of the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology; and Yang Wei, president of Zhejiang University.

Under one agreement, Project 2061, AAAS's pioneering science literacy initiative, will provide materials that can be translated and posted on the CAST Web site. Leshner and Lu signed a separate memorandum of understanding to select, translate and distribute 33 high-impact papers from the past decade of the journal Science.

Leshner and Deng also signed an overarching agreement to seek collaborative projects on a range of possible issues, including sustainability; public understanding of science and engineering; science education; and creating S&T opportunities for women.

"I believe that CAST and AAAS have common issues...and we're serving similar functions in our countries," Deng said in talks before a signing ceremony. "I believe that allows us to have even more cooperation in the broader fields of science."

"Our organizations are similar and unique in their size and breadth of activities, " replied Leshner, who also serves as executive publisher of Science. "Our collaboration has advantages not only for our countries, but also for the whole world....It's very important that we take every opportunity to collaborate on our common interests."

The new agreements and the ethics conference—resulting from months of trans-Pacific discussions—are landmarks in an ambitious new engagement between AAAS and the Chinese S&T community. The journal Science, published by AAAS, opened its first Chinese news office in Beijing this month, to be staffed by veteran correspondent Richard Stone. EurekAlert!, AAAS's science news service, this month debuted a new Chinese-language portal to serve the nation's journalists, researchers, businesses, and government.

Leshner described the China trip, from 24-29 September, as "highly informative and extremely constructive." The AAAS delegation also included Vaughan Turekian, AAAS chief international officer, and Tom Wang, AAAS director for international cooperation. Mark S. Frankel, director of AAAS's Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program, played a lead role in organizing the conference and in Beijing meetings with the Chinese Medical Association and the CAS Institute of Zoology.

"We are in an era of unprecedented global cooperation in science and technology— cooperation that not only advances the underlying sciences, but also addresses some of the major global challenges that we all face," Turekian said. "The collaboration between Chinese and U.S. scientists, and in fact all members of the global science enterprise, will lead to more creative science and technological developments that will improve people's lives."

The new engagement comes at a time of remarkable growth and emergence for China. Beginning some 2000 years ago, it achieved monumental breakthroughs in astronomy, medicine, mathematics, and technology. Today, following 30 years of reform and opening to the West, its economy is soaring. Shanghai and Beijing have become major world centers for business, culture, and tourism; next year, the nation will host the Summer Olympics.

Before he moved into government, Chinese President Hu Jintao was a hydraulic engineer; today, the government's "Scientific Development Perspective" is a framework for addressing China's complex economic, environmental, and international challenges.

To address climate change, the government in June announced plans to restructure the economy, promote clean energy technologies, and improve energy efficiency. China launched its first manned space mission in 2003; it sent its first spacecraft to orbit the moon at the end of October. In July, the China Internet Network Information Center reported that 162 million Chinese were connected to the Web; while that remains just a fraction of the nation's 1.3 billion people, in the first half of this year, an average of 100 new residents per minute logged on for the first time.

According to CAST, China's total investment in research and development nearly tripled between 2000 through 2005. A 2006 report by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) called the R&D spending increases "unprecedented for any country in recent memory."

In the bi-lateral talks and at the two-day AAAS/CAST conference—"China-U.S. Workshop on Scientists' Social and Ethical Responsibilities"—Chinese science officials discussed lessons learned and new approaches they are taking to address some of the challenges created by the dynamic growth of their scientific enterprise. Participants on both sides shared their experiences dealing with ethical lapses and other more serious misconduct resulting from this high-stakes environment.

During their meeting, Leshner and Wan Gang, China's S&T minister, discussed their views on the role of increased science competition in developing strong science in both countries, as well as the pressures to succeed confronting students and researchers at every level.

Qian Yi, a professor and environmental scientist at Tsinghua University, described several cases in which advanced students were caught in violations—falsifying a C.V., falsely claiming authorship of a paper, theft of research data. In one case, she said, an accomplished young scholar committed an infraction because he was competing for a major academic prize. "He was trying to make himself perfect," she said.

Shen Wenqing, vice president of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, said his organization created an ethics panel in 1998. From that year through 2004, he said, the committee received an average of 92 complaints a year and averaged about nine enforcement actions. In 2006, he said, 150 complaints generated 50 disciplinary actions.

Scholars and science policy experts in the U.S. delegation found the problems remarkably similar to those at home. The conference demonstrated that integrity "has been recognized as a key national issue by the highest level of the Chinese science communities," said William Y. Chang, director of the NSF Beijing office.

Karen Holbrook, the former president of Ohio State University, added that she was struck "by how very similar we are in our beliefs about the need for science and scientists to demonstrate complete integrity in their work—that it is a responsibility and implicit in the privilege of conducting scientific investigation."

Chinese S&T leaders and members of the AAAS delegation said the budding relationship should lead to collaboration on a variety of issues, including scholar exchange programs; science museums and public engagement; and sustainability.

Creating opportunities for continuing engagement made the China trip "tremendously important" for both countries, Leshner said. "I believe it sends a very important signal to the rest of the global scientific community about our shared seriousness about these critical issues."

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